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Report: 2 US journalists staying in guest house

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-10 14:04

SEOUL, Republic of Korea: The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has not yet sent two convicted US journalists to a prison labor camp in a possible attempt to seek talks with Washington on their release, a scholar who visited the North said in an interview published Friday.

More than 250 people rallied calling for the release of imprisoned American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, July 9, 2009. [Agencies]

Laura Ling and Euna lee, who work for former US Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV media group, are being kept at guest house in Pyongyang and have not yet been sent to a prison camp as called for in their sentences, University of Georgia political scientist Han Park said.

"I heard from officials of the DPRK that the American journalists were doing fine at a guest house in Pyongyang," Park told the Republic of Korea's (ROK) JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. Park, originally from the ROK, arrived Thursday in Seoul following a trip to Pyongyang.

Ling and Lee were detained near the DPRK border with China and were sentenced last month for to 12 years of hard labor for entering the country illegally and for "hostile acts."

Park said officials from the DPRK were angry at the journalists for trying to produce a program critical of the country. But Park said the issue could be resolved.

The Rev. Chun Ki-won from the ROK, who helped organize the journalists' reporting trip to China, said in April that the women traveled to the border region with the DPRK to interview women and children who had fled the impoverished country.

Related readings:  DPRK: US journalists admitted illegal crossing  US calls on DPRK to release journalists  DPRK jails 2 US journalists for 12 years  Pyongyang tries 2 US journalists amid calls for clemency  DPRK to hold trial of US journalists: KCNA

"North Korea's (the DPRK) move not to carry out the sentence suggests that it could release them through a dialogue with the United States and they could be set free at an early date, depending on the US gesture," Park said.

Repeated calls to his hotel in Seoul went unanswered.

Park's comments came days after Laura Ling told her sister, journalist Lisa Ling, during a 20-minute telephone call that a government pardon is their only hope for freedom.

In California, Lisa Ling said Thursday that her sister called Tuesday to say she and Lee had broken the law in the DPRK when they were captured in March.

Their detention comes as the US is moving to enforce UN as well as its own sanctions against Pyongyang for its May 25 nuclear test. The DPRK also fired seven ballistic missiles in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.